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| The Convent at Pokolbin
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Pokolbin (including Lovedale, Mount View and Rothbury)
Centre of the famous Hunter Valley wine region
The area which incorporates Pokolbin, Lovedale, Mount View
and Rothbury is associated with just one thing: wine. These
are the vineyards of the Lower Hunter - a paradise for wine
lovers and of scant interest for others, although the
district is quite scenic and there are just enough secondary
attractions to justify a visit by those who have no interest
in viticulture.
Pokolbin is not a town and although some refer to it, for
historic reasons, as a village this is also stretching the
definition of the term somewhat. There is little centrality
about the area which is essentially a district bisected by a
number of roads along which are picturesque vineyards and
those businesses which complement the wineries:
accommodation, restaurants, galleries, nurseries, gift shops
and various enterprises which furnish transport around the
district.
Viticulture in the Hunter Valley is often considered to
have commenced with James Busby. In the 1820s he studied
oenology, wrote a treatise and guidance manual on the
subject and briefly taught viticulture at a Liverpool farm
school. In 1831 he undertook a tour of French and Spanish
vineyards which resulted in two published journals of the
trip. He returned with 700 carefully wrapped cuttings of
European vines, sending half to the newly established Royal
Botanical Gardens in Sydney. The rest he took with him to
the family estate of Kirkton, just north of Belford (see
entry on Greta). There he established what was probably the first
vineyard in the district. He later left for New Zealand
where, as Government Resident of New Zealand, he established
the Treaty of Waitangi.
The naming of Pokolbin has a somewhat convoluted history.
Land north of Cessnock at what is now called Nulkaba,
adjacent what is now Allandale Rd, was reserved for a church
and school during the first surveys of the area in 1829. St
Luke's Anglican Church was built there in 1867, the original
slab-construction St Patrick's Catholic Church in 1872 and a
school in 1877. Intended as an administrative centre for the
district a village was laid out in 1884-85 as 'The Village
of Pokolbin' but became known as Cessnock later in the
decade. That name was transferred to the town now known as
Cessnock in 1908 and the local name, Nulkaba, was officially
adopted in 1927. By that time the farmland to the west had
become known as Pokolbin and this is still the case.
The Drayton family established a vineyard at Pokolbin
around the late 1850s and the Tyrrells Estate was set up in
1859 by a nephew of the first Anglican Bishop of Newcastle
who produced his first batch of wine in 1864. After the
Robertson Land Act was introduced in 1861 the way was opened
for small landholders and more people began to settle in the
Rothbury/Pokolbin area.
Vineyards really began to spring up from the late 1870s
but the depression of the 1890s dealt the industry a blow
which was further crippled by the influx of cheaper wine
from South Australia when customs barriers between the
states were removed after Federation was declared in 1901.
It was not really until the 1960s that the wine industry
of the Lower Hunter really began to boom due to the closure
of local mining operations and the reorientation of
Australian tastes with the influx of European immigrants
after the Second World War. By the 1980s it had superceded
mining as the centrepiece of the local economy.
The Lovedale Long Lunch is held each year in May and the
Thanksgiving Festival in April (phone 02 4990 4477 for
further information). Tyrrell's Winery hosts Jazz in the
Vines in October.
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Pokolbin
